5: The Holy Road (16 page)

“I see,” Ushman Nuritam said again.

“No,” John said quickly, “I didn’t mean to say that.”

“It’s all right, Ushvun Jahn,” Ushman Nuritam told him kindly. “You are only speaking the truth. There can be nothing wrong in speaking the truth.”

John felt sick with himself, but Ushman Nuritam’s words still soothed him. A moment later he couldn’t remember what it was that had disturbed him.

Ushman Nuritam looked to Hann’yu. “I believe that is all that I needed to know. I will send word to the Usho. Have Ushvun Jahn prepared for the Holy Road.”

“You’re not going to let them kill Ravishan?” John demanded.

“No,” Ushman Nuritam replied. “It seems that Ushiri Ravishan was quite surprisingly blameless.”

“He was. He did nothing wrong,” John said. Ravishan was safe. He could relax. Hann’yu walked to John and motioned him to his feet. John started to stand, but his legs buckled. He stumbled and barely caught himself, staring at the floor in confusion. He couldn’t remember ever losing his balance before.

“Hann’yu,” Ushman Nuritam added, “while you are in Amura’taye, see that the city guards call on the Bousim household.”

“I will,” Hann’yu replied. He moved close to steady John.

“Is it going to be all right now?” John asked. He swayed. The full heat of the afternoon sun seemed to disorient him. But it was so warm, so soothing. Caught in its blaze, John could hardly think at all.

“Yes, everything is going to be fine,” Hann’yu said, but he looked like he was going to be sick.

John tried to give him a reassuring smile, but then his legs crumpled beneath him and he dropped to the floor. A dull pain washed through John’s head and hip as he hit the stones. But then he forgot it. He grinned up at Hann’yu’s worried face. He didn’t know why he was lying on the floor. The sun felt good on his face. He laughed for several minutes before passing out.

For the first time in years John dreamed of Nayeshi.

In the dream, he sat at the kitchen table in his old apartment, listening to Bill surfing through television channels in the living room. Briefly, the theme song of some cartoon played, only to be cut off by a burst of static and then the cheap flat sound effects of some poorly dubbed kung fu movie. Bill laughed.

“Hey, Toffee,” Bill called. “You gotta come see this.”

“Just a minute.” John picked up a letter and turned it over in his hands.

“You’re gonna miss it,” Bill shouted.

“I’ll be right there.” The letter was terribly familiar. John slid his thumb under the flap of the sealed edge. He started to tear it open but then stopped. Bill had turned up the volume of the television. The sounds of fists slamming into muscle were oddly authentic now.

“You’re missing it,” Bill yelled over the loud crash of splintering wood.

“Just a second,” John said.

“No.” Bill’s voice had taken on a strained tone. “You have to come now.”

John sighed, began to open his mouth to reply, and then there was an explosive boom. Instantly everything went silent. John bolted up from the table and ran to the living room. The television was shattered. Stuffing and pieces of fabric from the couch littered the floor. In the very center of the room there was a small pool of blood.

“Bill,” John called.

There was no reply.

“Bill!” John shouted. “BILL!”

John woke up, sobbing on a dirt floor. The shackles locked around his wrists and ankles were cold. The heavy chains only allowed him to move a few feet. He curled his body in over his naked groin. His stomach rolled and his head was pounding as if he had spent the entire night drinking grain alcohol.

The smell of urine and sour sweat hung all around him. Even without light John could sense the cramped confines of the granite walls surrounding him. The dirt beneath him was the overworked soil of Amura’taye. He was in a prison somewhere in the city. Distantly, John thought he heard a scream. It was a woman’s voice. John suddenly remembered Lady Bousim.

What had he done to her?

John pressed his eyes closed. Waves of sickness welled through him. He lay still, waiting for it to pass. Outside the door of his cell, he heard the steps of guards as they passed down a corridor. Briefly he caught a smell like that of roasting meat. From some cell far away there came more screams. Sharp wrenching cries tore through the air again and again until they broke into raw gasps.

John curled his arms over his head, pressing his hands over his ears. He needed to get out of this place. But he was still too sick to even stand. Instead he slipped from nauseous, pounding consciousness into dark, fevered dreams. He bolted awake an hour later, shrieks still ringing through his mind.

Faint yellow light seeped in from the edges of the cell door. The darkness of the cell had given way to soft gray shadows. The sun would be up soon. John knew he couldn’t afford to waste more time. He had to find a way out.

He pulled himself up to his knees and ran his hand along the wall. All around him the solid crystalline structures of stone interlaced like twining fingers. Fissures of mortar spread between them. John concentrated, pushing his hand up against the wall. He needed it to break. He shoved his arm against the rough surface of the stone until it began to bite into his palm. His muscles strained as he pushed against countless tons of masonry.

“Break,” John growled as anger and desperation burned through him. “Break, damn you!”

He felt the mortar crumbling under his fingers. Then, suddenly, the stone split. A violent crack shot out from John’s hand. Splinters of stone exploded out of the rupture. A shard of rock tore into John’s palm. He jerked his hand back.

Pain flared through John. He swore under his breath and the stone wall groaned. Cracks surged across its surface. Tiny seams split and spread out across the dirt floor, rushing towards John. Above him fine cracks raced over the ceiling. Dust and splinters of stone poured down on him. He coughed and tried to move back, but the destruction followed him. He came up short at the ends of his chains.

He was about to bring the entire prison down directly on top of himself. He had to stop it. He had to calm down.

John closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. He released the air from his lungs, feeling his pulse calm as he did. The cracks in the wall slowed their spread. John took another deep breath, concentrating on his even breathing and the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. Desperation drained from him and the erosion of the floor, wall, and ceiling stopped.

For a few minutes John simply sat there covered in dirt and dust, too shaken to move. He looked up at the huge, splintered stones above his head. If he hadn’t been able to control himself, he could have been crushed.

He’d had no idea that it would be so difficult to stop. He had to be careful. But he couldn’t afford to give up altogether. His memory was not clear, but he did recall Ushman Nuritam saying that he should be prepared for the Holy Road.

John caught hold of the chain that restrained his left arm. The links were forged from red iron, not black. The red metal oxidized much more quickly. Patches of rust already covered many of the links of the chain. When he closed his eyes and concentrated, John could feel the rust burning into the red iron like a slow fire.

John held his right hand over one of the most degraded links. Very carefully, he focused his will on the soft orange circles of corrosion. For several moments nothing happened. John held his breath, concentrating intensely. Nothing. He could feel the air going stale in his lungs. The slight discomfort of it spread through his chest.

Then John felt a spark. Not in the iron but in himself.

A surge of heat burst through his chest. His lungs expanded, drinking in desperation in place of oxygen. The searing sensation rushed through his bloodstream. His muscles tensed; his heart began hammering out a new, strange rhythm. The feeling was so overwhelming, so forceful, that John could have mistaken it for rage. But he knew he wasn’t angry.

There was purity to the sensation that went beyond anger. It surged through John with a wild power and drive. It awoke every cell in his body with a raw will to live. He felt as if something deep and dormant within him had suddenly come awake. And it could do what he could not. As the full sensation of it rushed through him, he could almost hear it whispering from within him.

It would shatter stone, burn iron, ignite the air and sear the oceans into smoke. It would devour mountains, split the earth, and tear the atmosphere to pieces. It would destroy worlds just to keep living. To survive, it would do anything. Destroy everything.

John heard the walls of his cell groan. The air felt like ice flowing over his hot flesh. He tasted frost and smelled traces of sweat and soot from the torches. Power churned through him, aching to be released in a riot of destruction.

John concentrated intensely. He didn’t need to split the earth. He didn’t need to tear down mountains or ignite the atmosphere. He just needed to break a single link of chain. The power within him hungered to do so much more. The scents on the air, the texture of the earth beneath him, they would each be so easy to rip apart in a riot of flame and force.

He glared at the chain in front of him. He focused his will on a single link of iron. It was all that he saw. A single circle of dull red metal, flecked with tiny orange and yellow flames of rust. John pushed at those fires, willing them to grow.

Instantly they spread over the iron link. The metal blackened and cracked. Smoke poured off it as the rust burned through. It was consumed in an instant and the burning continued. Link after link of the chain seared to vapor as John fought to regain control of the force surging through him. Charred, smoking hunks of iron cracked and dropped to the cell floor.

Again, John retreated into his own strong pulse and even breath until he felt the power within him recede. At last it slipped back into its slumber.

Red burns streaked out from the edges of the smoking shackle on John’s left wrist. All that remained of the chain were piles of ash on the floor and a strong corrosive smell in the air. John’s body was damp with sweat from the exertion of controlling the power within him.

That had been the Rifter, John realized. It was part of himself but nearly as involuntary as his heartbeat. It was an unthinking reflex for survival and destruction. Like an insanely over-armed immune system, it could as easily harm John as save him. And he could barely control it.

He sank back down to the floor of the cell. His right arm and both his legs were still chained to the wall. He didn’t know if he could go through all of that three more times. But he had to get out of here.

John looked up at the cracks in the ceiling. If he called on his power as the Rifter again and he couldn’t stop the destruction, would it kill him? If a piece of stone came loose above him, could he pulverize it as he had the cart in the blood market?

What about the other prisoners in their cells?

No, protecting them was out of the question. He didn’t even know where they were. So how many of them would he be willing to kill to save himself? He knew the answer that the Rifter would have given: every one of them could die. Every living creature in Amura’taye could be sacrificed if it meant even a moment more life for himself.

“My id obviously has a scorched earth policy,” he murmured to himself. It was something Bill might have said. The thought made John suddenly miserable. He pressed his face into his knees.

To escape he would have to kill at least some of the people in this prison. He knew it. He wasn’t strong enough to make any other choice.

Outside, guards strode past the door of his cell. He heard the slap of their boots against the packed dirt floor. Then, without warning, there were noises from beyond his door. John pushed himself back into a corner, hoping the shadows would obscure his missing chain. The heavy stone door swung open. Two city guards stood in the bright hall outside. Between them, looking tired and holding a small tray of food, was Samsango.

“You have until the next bell,” one of the guards told Samsango. He barely glanced at John. The other guard spat on the floor of the cell but said nothing.

“Thank you.” Samsango entered the cell and the guards pulled the door closed again. John heard them sliding the heavy bolt back into place and securing the lock beneath it. Samsango said, “Jahn? Are you awake?”

John watched Samsango feeling his way along the wall.

“I’m here.” He pulled himself to his feet.

Samsango slowly knelt down with his tray. His knees creaked and popped. “I brought a lamp.”

A moment later Samsango had lit the simple little lamp. Its perfumed oil gave off a faint aroma of flowers. The old ushvun smiled as he caught sight of John and then his expression turned slowly sad. “Did they beat you?”

“No, I don’t think so.” Now that the room was illuminated John could see the deep black bruises marring the pale skin of his naked hip. “I fell. It looks worse than it feels. I hadn’t even noticed it.”

“I brought you food.” Samsango beckoned him closer. “Sit down and eat with me.”

“The chains don’t reach that far,” John said. He frowned a
t Samsango. “Does the prior know that you’re here?”